At the age of two, artist Ali Cavanaugh survived a bout of spinal meningitis, emerging relatively unscathed except for the near-total loss of her sense of hearing. What might have been a bitter sentence for a child turned out to be a lifelong blessing in disguise, instilling in Cavanaugh a singular sensitivity to the unspoken expressions that spark body language and the feelings that lie just beneath the mask of the human face.

Modern Fresco Paintings charts Cavanaugh’s boldest explorations yet into illustrating the interior space of thought. The more than one hundred fifty full-color images displayed here are the results of a unique process where multiple baths of watercolor are layered with synthetic brushes atop a wet clay surface and then sheathed in ultraviolet coating—an homage to the ancient art of fresco painting done with contemporary materials. The luminous portraits that emerge from these stacks of color penetrate through the visible layers to reveal the unseen truths behind their subjects’ external features and expressions.